Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Cusack in the realm of the Southern Wonderland. Or perhaps an episode of Columbo under the spell of mescaline and enchanted by indecisive voodoo storytelling. As the Bird Girl statue suggests, good and evil end up in a sort of draw, and the length of the match will be perceived very subjectively. When I want to dive back into the mystery under hanging strands of Tillandsia, I’ll prefer to do so in an electrifying fog. (20/11/2023)

I've seen this movie before, but I only remembered that it was ridiculously long. However, the series of comments that found hidden values beneath the facade of the dragged-out runtime made me reconsider the film and watch it again. Clint attempted to venture into unexplored genre territory, but the result is quite depressing in my opinion. Eastwood simply isn't crazy enough to build an attractive and functional mysterious atmosphere through filmmaking techniques and to use truly bizarre characters that could sustain a 155-minute duration. While with other films I sometimes say that 15-20 minutes could easily be cut, here it could easily be a whole hour. I couldn't watch it in one go, I had to dedicate two evenings to it, and even then I nodded off twice during the first half. In such a case, however, I cannot give it even the average three stars. Despite Clint having a few acting stars in his team who tried to earn their salary, and despite the potential offered by the source material, an unsuccessful movie was created, one of the most problematic in Eastwood's career. Overall impression: 40%. (01/11/2013)